Thursday, February 14, 2013

The 27-time champions are conspicuously absent among the favorites to win the World Series this year, according to sports books in Las Vegas, and aren’t the oddsmakers’ pick to win a division title they’ve claimed 12 of the past 15 years.

Steve Mikkelson, who has set baseball betting lines since 1987 and is the sports book director for the Atlantis Casino Resort in Reno, Nevada, yesterday put the Yankees’ projected win total for this season at 86 1/2. The Yankees haven’t won fewer than 87 games in a full season since 1992, and have had 94 wins or more seven of the past eight years.

“I can never recall seeing the Yankees in this position,” said Mikkelson, who put up Nevada’s earliest win totals for MLB teams for the seventh straight year. “They’ve always been one of the top two or three teams, if not the top team, year in and year out for the last 20 years.”

...With a projected win total of 86 1/2, bettors can place a season-long wager on whether the Yankees will have 87 wins or more, or if they’ll have 86 wins or fewer. A winning $115 wager would return a $100 profit. New York’s worst record during the past 17 years was an 87-74 mark in 2000, when it went on to win a third straight World Series title.

Championship Odds

The Yankees head into spring training with 14-1 odds of winning this year’s World Series, tied for eighth among the league’s 30 teams at the Las Vegas Hotel’s Super Book. The Los Angeles Angels, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Washington Nationals, Cincinnati Reds, Toronto Blue Jays and defending champion San Francisco Giants currently have better odds.

“I can’t remember the last time they’ve been in this range to win the World Series at the start of the year,” Chris Bennett, who sets baseball lines for the LVH Super Book, said in a telephone interview. “I feel like they’ve always been less than 10-1, at least, coming into the season. People have a lot of questions about the Yankees.”

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What Vegas oddsmakers mostly are saying is that the public believes the Yankees may record the fewest wins in 20 years. They now dabble somewhat into what they expect as well, to maximize profits, but public PERCEPTION continues to weigh heavily on line-setting.

I'd be shocked if the Yankees finished in the 83-89 win range. I expect them either to just be the Yankees and put up a 93 or more win seasons or to have the bottom fall out and win like 73.

(I realize that no team is likely to win +-3 games of their projection. But given that, I think the Yankees are even less likely to win 86.5+-3 games than what you might think just looking at how teams do against historical lines.)

I'm almost at the point of rooting for the Yankees. The doom and gloom is getting silly. They've been in three of the last four ALCS, for all the talk about players that aren't there they still have an awful lot of talent and they have proven to be a very smart organization as well. At some point they'll probably have a bad year but I think you predict it at your own peril.

The fact that no team is projected to win over 90 games is not a projection that no team will win over 90 games.

You see the same kind of compression in the CAIRO projections. The projections are meant to be an estimate of how good a team is, averaging out the unpredictable factor of how lucky a team is. It's not so weird for there to be no team in the league with more than 90-win talent. But there are a lot of teams with 85-90 win talent and some of them are going to get lucky.

Also, I think 76.5 is low for the Orioles. There's no reason to expect them to win 93 games again, but 76.5 says they're going to put worse talent on the field this year than they did last year, and I just don't see that.

Also, I think 76.5 is low for the Orioles. There's no reason to expect them to win 93 games again, but 76.5 says they're going to put worse talent on the field this year than they did last year, and I just don't see that.

Well, the division is almost certainly tougher. 36 games against Boston and Toronto are going to be harder than last year's.

The fact that no team is projected to win over 90 games is not a projection that no team will win over 90 games.

Yup, this.

The fact that they have 5 teams that are virtual coin-flips to win over 90, and about another 7 with reasonable non-outside shots at doing so, means they think there will be quite a few. They just aren't sure which ones it will be.

The fact that they have 5 teams that are virtual coin-flips to win over 90, and about another 7 with reasonable non-outside shots at doing so, means they think there will be quite a few. They just aren't sure which ones it will be.

It's basic probability. No one has good odds of getting in a car wreck next week, but somebody will.

If no team wins more than 90 games over a full season, that would mean the top W-L record would be .556. In the pre-expansion era, 1958 was the last year no MLB team finished over .600. That year, the Yankees and Braves both finished at .597, but despite the relative balance (aside from the Senators at .396, every team was at .448 or higher), both pennant races lacked drama (New York won by 10 games, Milwaukee won by eight).

They've had their best offseason in recent memory, but the starting rotation is a guy who's had one good season as a starter since 2006 (Myers), a 22-year-old who may well be a star but has four career MLB appearances (Bauer), a guy who absolutely cannot get LHB out and has an ERA+ of 92 over his last 602 innings (Masterson), a guy who's obviously broken and has an 82 ERA+ since 2011 (Jimenez), and a back-end guy who appears to be entirely adequate, but whose ceiling is approximately Number Three Starter (McAllister).

For the first time in forever, I feel like they know what they're trying to accomplish. Alas, that doesn't make it any easier in the short term to go .500 with a rotation full of junk and question marks.

With no team "predicted" to win over 90 games, it is probably a good bet to take the over on almost any team you think will make the playoffs / generically "do well.

This is wrong. If you have reason to believe that Vegas has underrated a specific team - I think the Nats are a good over bet - then that can be a smart bet, but the fact that none are projected over 90 does not mean that Vegas has systematically underrated the good teams. (With reference to escabeche, snapper, and FPH's points above.)

As has been stated multiple times already, there is zero chance a casino would give you even odds on any team winning 91+ games. Someone here can figure this out better than I can, but I'd guess from these numbers you'd be looking at like 1 to 9 on that bet.

Lines aren't projections, but even if they were projecting 3 teams to win 90, 1 to win 89 1/2, 1 to win 88 1/2, and 1 to win 87 is a guarantee that a team will win 91. As I look at it, I actually suspect you'd have to give 1 to 20 on any team winning 91+ games.

As has been stated multiple times already, there is zero chance a casino would give you even odds on any team winning 91+ games. Someone here can figure this out better than I can, but I'd guess from these numbers you'd be looking at like 1 to 9 on that bet.

Lines aren't projections, but even if they were projecting 3 teams to win 90, 1 to win 89 1/2, 1 to win 88 1/2, and 1 to win 87 is a guarantee that a team will win 91. As I look at it, I actually suspect you'd have to give 1 to 20 on any team winning 91+ games.

Of course. If 7 teams had only a 10% chance each of winning 90, the odds still favor at least 1 90 game winner. (0.9)^7=48%.

They've had their best offseason in recent memory, but the starting rotation is a guy who's had one good season as a starter since 2006 (Myers), a 22-year-old who may well be a star but has four career MLB appearances (Bauer), a guy who absolutely cannot get LHB out and has an ERA+ of 92 over his last 602 innings (Masterson), a guy who's obviously broken and has an 82 ERA+ since 2011 (Jimenez), and a back-end guy who appears to be entirely adequate, but whose ceiling is approximately Number Three Starter (McAllister).

Well and good, but the Yankees' starting lineup looks a lot more like Damascus than Cairo.

This level of whining is unbecoming a Yankee fan ;-)

I'm just facing the facts. In 5 out of 9 starting positions, including DH, their production is almost certain to decline, and in the other 4 (1B, 2B, LF, CF) you're just hoping to hold the line. They're defensively strong in at most 4 positions (Texeira, Cano, Gardner and Ichiro), there are no catching prospects of any noticeable quality in sight, and the only pitchers almost certain to increase their production are Mo and Pineda. If you could turn the clock back about 5 years or so, this team would be great, and if our parents had been Chinese, we'd probably have yellowish skin.

They are what they are, a good, not great team. There are no great teams in the AL, so they've got as good a chance as most anybody.

That over/under's out there if you really believe that. I've already made my standing offer about the Yanks and the Orioles, and anyone else who wants to take me up on it is welcome to come forward.

If you could turn the clock back about 5 years or so, this team would be great, and if our parents had been Chinese, we'd probably have yellowish skin.

Racist.

The Yankees are the killer in a typical slasher movie: just when you think they're dead for good, they strike! (Meanwhile, the Red Sox are the teenage girl who decides a lonely lake in the middle of the night is ideal for skinny-dipping.)

I'm just facing the facts. In 5 out of 9 starting positions, including DH, their production is almost certain to decline, and in the other 4 (1B, 2B, LF, CF) you're just hoping to hold the line. They're defensively strong in at most 4 positions (Texeira, Cano, Gardner and Ichiro), there are no catching prospects of any noticeable quality in sight, and the only pitchers almost certain to increase their production are Mo and Pineda. If you could turn the clock back about 5 years or so, this team would be great, and if our parents had been Chinese, we'd probably have yellowish skin.

That's crazy.

The LF/CF combo should be MUCH better this year with Gardner/Granderson (in whatever alignment) vs. Ibanez/Jones/Granderson. Youkilis could easily match ARod at 3B. Hafner in DNYS should be able to match the DH committee. Cano and Texeira could be better, the same, or worse. Maybe down is more likely, but up is a possibility.

They'll be weaker at C and RF. Likely SS too.

But this team had the second highest runs scored and the second highest OPS+. Even with a decline, they can still be good on offense. And, the pitching should be good too.

My working theory is that, when the Astros show up, the team will be flabbergasted by the fact that they are actually far more talented than an interdivision rival. As a result of this confusion, they'll go 8-10 vs. Houston.

Edit: Apparently my working theory also includes a rain-out, since it looks as though there are actually 19 games scheduled between these teams.

I'll be shocked if the Astros win 60 games. It's hard to see that roster coming up with more than 55-57 wins. I'm not a betting man, but I suppose there is a hesitancy to bet at the extremes. After all, going 62-100 could never be considered too shocking an accomplishment. Of course I'm already seeing Carlos Rodon at 1-1 in the 2014 draft, and at the end of the 2014 season there's a decent chance the Astros will be looking at having the first pick in the draft three years running. Oh, for a Strasburg/Harper convergence of some kind.

the fact that none are projected over 90 does not mean that Vegas has systematically underrated the good teams. (With reference to escabeche, snapper, and FPH's points above.)

With reference to all of these well-made points, the one and only task of Vegas oddsmakers is to split the money coming in. Lines are not predictions or projections, they're tools to make money. They don't set lines for accuracy, they set lines to reflect perception, because when bettors' money is split on a line, they collect 100% from the losers and pay 10-to-11 or 10-to-11.5 to the winners.

I've got a buddy going to Vegas next week but I don't think I'd put enough money down to make it worthwhile to have to travel back to Vegas to collect.

The obstacle for me hasn't been the inconvenience of collection but the fact that Vegas gets to keep your money for 6 months on a -110 or -115 proposition. Every year I pick my favorite win total and I'm almost always right (over on the White Sox last year), so it seems I should bet the farm once a year and clean up, but that means Vegas has my farm for half the year. Only futures bet I've ever made on baseball was the Red Sox to win the WS in 2004, a bet I made around mid-May after a tough stretch.

Interestingly, all the lines taken together leave 24 wins out of the equation, so on balance the overs might be seen as better bets. I wonder if this is common - not something I've ever looked at.

In the aggregate, the vig (and variation, but that's a different topic) overwhelms the -24 total total.

In other words, if the bets were even odds you'd lay out $3k to make a $100 "over" bet on each team. Say that because of the -24, 16 of 30 teams are a lock to beat the over. You'd lay $3k to make $3200. Free money - depending on your opinion of the time value of money. But because these bets are at -115, now you're laying $3450 to win $3440 ($1600 winnings plus $1840 of your bet back). Vegas has an idea what they're doing.

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to explain this more clearly.

Austin's right that usually the reverse is true, though. Now I wish this is something I had been paying attention to for years. Wonder if it's indicative of a cultural trend or something.

The oddsmakers seem to be saying the Yankees are as good as anyone in the AL East. Not sure why that's taken as a negative. Too much focus on the number of wins projected rather than the overall result., IMHO. After all, the last time the Yankees had "only" 87 wins turned out to be a very good year. If healthy, the pitching could be very good, with the added boost with Pineda for the second half, too.

74 wins seems high for the Mets what with losing Dickey, Wright having had a season he's unlikely to repeat, the bullpen dying, and an OF that's going from around ML worst to, well, worse than that. I suppose D'Arnaud and Marcum might help staunch the bleeding, but any team with John Buck as there Opening Day catcher is hurting.

PECOTA has the Mets at 80 wins, or where Vegas has the Red Sox, and the Red Sox at 86 wins, or where Vegas has the Yankees. Weird.